Gilliland, T. J., Hennessy, D. and Ball, T. (2018) Breeding resilient cultivars for European grass based ruminant production systems. Sustainable meat and milk production from grasslands. Proceedings of the 27th General Meeting of the European Grassland Federation, Cork, Ireland, 17-21 June 2018, pp.29-42.

Higgins, S., Stafford, A., Catto, W. and Bailey, J. S. (2018) Comparison of relative agronomic performance of several fertiliser formulations in perennial ryegrass pasture. Sustainable meat and milk production from grasslands. Proceedings of the 27th General Meeting of the European Grassland Federation, Cork, Ireland, 17-21 June 2018, pp. 231-233.

Hoppe, G. M.; Gilliland, T. J.

Hoppe, G.M. and Gilliland, T.J. (2018) The phenological development of three ryegrass clones and the influence of initial silage cut on regrowth under silage management. Sustainable meat and milk production from grasslands. Proceedings of the 27th General Meeting of the European Grassland Federation, Cork, Ireland, 17-21 June 2018, pp. 240-242.

Hynes, D.; Laidlaw, S.; Ferris, C.

Hynes, D., Laidlaw, S. and Ferris, C. (2018) Effect of management strategy on wilting of monocultures and mixture of red clover and perennial ryegrass. Sustainable meat and milk production from grasslands. Proceedings of the 27th General Meeting of the European Grassland Federation, Cork, Ireland, 17-21 June 2018, pp. 249-251.

McAdam, J. H. (2018) Silvopastoral agroforestry - an option to support sustainable grassland intensification. Sustainable meat and milk production from grasslands. Proceedings of the 27th General Meeting of the European Grassland Federation, Cork, Ireland, 17-21 June 2018, pp. 628-630.

McAdam, J. H.

McAdam, J. H., Rendell, N. and Poole, M. (2018) A climate change mitigation strategy for the grasslands of the Falkland Islands. Sustainable meat and milk production from grasslands. Proceedings of the 27th General Meeting of the European Grassland Federation, Cork, Ireland, 17-21 June 2018, pp. 631-633.

Murchie, A. K. (2018) Earthworms and grassland productivity: impact of the New Zealand flatworm and slurry. Sustainable meat and milk production from grasslands. Proceedings of the 27th General Meeting of the European Grassland Federation, Cork, Ireland, 17-21 June 2018, pp. 643-645.

This is the first of a series of regular updates planned for the 2018-19 academic year which will keep you informed on progress of the McClay Library Phase 3 expansion project. This project will realise a significant number of additional PCs and study seats in the library and involves the following key elements:

The courtyard area on the ground floor (behind Borrower Services and Short Loan) is being re-developed to provide over 100 PCs and 9 additional group study rooms.

The student lounge on the ground floor will be doubled in size.

A new silent study room with 67 seats will be created at the bottom of the atrium

Additional study seats and PCs will be added to floors 1 and 3.

The extended facility will be available to students from autumn 2019.

Unfortunately, there will be some unavoidable building noise and disruption to your studies over the months ahead but we will do everything we can to minimize this and to give you plenty of warning should the work threaten to impact on you adversely.

In the meantime, if you have any particular feedback or questions, please contact: afbilib@qub.ac.uk.

The AFBI Library is currently carrying out the annual journal review. This is your opportunity to have an input into the journals the library subscribes to on your behalf. Your Library representatives have a list of current journal subscriptions and everyone is encouraged to feedback to them. Please take this opportunity to have your say.

In addition to the WiFi available at the Stormont Library, we are pleased to advise that the Newforge Library now has full WiFi coverage, giving you internet access on your laptop, phone or other mobile device.

All AFBI Library Online resources are available via WiFi at both locations.

Before you view your article register for a British Library account at: http://go.qub.ac.uk/DRMLite. Use your AFBI email when registering (you may then forward on to a personal email address if you wish)

Inform the library at Newforge or Stormont when your registration is complete

Being located in the midst of one of the world’s most famous food & agriculture research centres (Wageningen University and Research) in the Netherlands, Wageningen Academic Publishers publish cutting edge research in the Life Sciences.

E-book collections

The Wageningen Academic Publishers e-book collections constitute a valuable resource for academics and researchers in the Life Sciences and related Social disciplines. The collections include monographs, handbooks and proceedings. They can be browsed in the following subject categories:

Away from the library desk, our staff work hard behind the scenes to ensure that the service we provide is the best it can be.

Did you know?

100% of all returned books are available to customers within one working day.

100% of interlibrary loan requests are actioned within 3 working days of your request.

Core library systems are available 99.3% of the time, with the majority of systems available 24/7.

Remember, your opinion matters to us – please use our feedback form if you wish to leave any comments, enquiries or complaints regarding our performance. 97.9% of our customers are satisfied with our responses to their feedback, enquiries and complaints.

The AFBI Library ran an impact survey from 1st - 31st October 2016 to help us identify the value of the library service to staff. We were pleased to receive approximately 40 responses (10%) providing us with valuable evidence of the positive impact of our service.

The case studies provided strongly highlighted the importance of speedy document delivery, bibliographic management, help with literature searching and training. Office-based support was appreciated particularly in relation to use of Endnote.

Library staff much appreciate the time taken to respond to this useful survey. Although the survey has now closed we are always grateful for evidence of the positive impact of library services so please send us examples as they occur.

Keeping up to date with Web of Science alerts and conference proceedingsWeb of Science is a large, multidisciplinary bibliographic database of 90 million records, including journal articles, and is the most authoritative database for locating conference proceedings. This session will demonstrate how to keep up-to-date with new papers as they are added to WoS through setting up alerts, and how to find conference proceedings effectively.Newforge – 14th SeptemberStormont – 14th SeptemberNewforge – 19th OctoberStormont – 19th October

Kew’s State of the World’s Plants report 2016 provides, for the first time, a baseline assessment of our current knowledge on the diversity of plants on earth, the global threats these plants currently face, and the policies dealing with them. Launched in conjunction with a new website and an international scientific symposium, Kew’s State of the World’s Plants will set an important standard from which we can annually track trends in status of the world’s plants.

Zetoc gives access to the British Library's electronic table of contents of around 20,000 current journals and 16,000 conference proceedings. This bite-size session will show you how to access this service, search journals and conferences and set up email alerts to your chosen journals.

Thank you to all who responded to the 2015 Satisfaction Survey. We had a pleasing response rate of 7%. We were delighted with the positive comments from AFBI library members. You commented, in particular, on the helpfulness of library staff, the swift response to requests for journal articles and the ease of use of AFBI Library Online. We shall endeavour to continue to deliver a high standard of service to you and respond to suggestions made so do please contact us if we can help in any way.

Some sample comments from the Library satisfaction survey:

I have always found the staff to be extremely helpful with any queries I may have.

I particularly find AFBI online library useful for when I am not able to visit the library myself.

The library at VSD is a good mix of computers and desks. It is very organised and quiet enough to study in.

I appreciate email reminders when books are due to be returned.

I would like to mention that the library staff in VSD Stormont are extremely helpful, friendly and interested in the staff and their work. As well as providing a great service, and going far out of their way to help, their interacting with the staff by holding Christmas coffee mornings etc is greatly appreciated.

The British Library delivers pdfs of print articles directly to your email.

What are the benefits of DRM Lite?

No need to install plug-ins of special software

Use different devices to access your documents

How to get DRM Lite - in 3 easy steps

Request inter-library loans via the library online request form as before

Before you view your article register for a British Library account at: http://go.qub.ac.uk/DRMLite. Use your AFBI email when registering (you may then forward on to a personal email address if you wish)

Inform the library at Newforge or Stormont when your registration is complete

Don't get caught out: Think. Check. Submit - new online tool to help researchers choose where to publish

Launched on 1st October, Think. Check. Submit., is a new campaign that helps researchers evaluate journals prior to submitting their work for publication. The campaign highlights the increasing risk to publishers from predatory open access publishers – unknown publishers who commonly solicit article submissions via spam emails and request payment of article processing charges, but lack any discernible scholarship or academic credibility.

The tool provides a checklist of quality indicators that can help researchers identify if a journal is a trustworthy place to submit research and is available at: http://thinkchecksubmit.org/

If you are experiencing problems downloading or viewing Wiley journal articles online please ensure your browser is upgraded to Internet Explorer 11 or try using Google Chrome, which should resolve the issue.

If you continue to have problems please don't hesitate to contact the AFBI Library.

The Library training programme for September to December 2015 is outlined below.

The Bite Size sessions will be held in the libraries at both Stormont and Newforge and there is no need to book for them - just turn up on the day! However as places are limited, the Endnote training sessions require you to book a place.

Further dates for the Bite Size and Endnote sessions have been arranged for AFBI Hillsborough (NB. all staff on this site should have received an email outlining the dates).

For further information on any of the courses or to book a place on the Endnote sessions please email agriclib@qub.ac.uk.

Please note that attendance at any of these courses will now be reflected on your training record on HRConnect.

A new feature has now been added to Search@AFBILib. When you have completed a search, click on the title of any article and scroll down where you will find the Altmetric and Eigenfactor information for that specific article.

If you have any feedback, or would like further training on how to make the most of Search@AFBILib, please don't hesitate to contact the library agriclib@qub.ac.uk

Search@AFBILib - discover a new way of searching at our introductory sessions!

On Thursday 19th March the AFBI Library launched its new search facility which provides a faster more streamlined search facility. From this date the AFBI Library catalogue will be replaced by a single search box from which you will be able to:-

search for library material such as books, e-books, journals, e-journals

search by the title of an article

perform quick searches for articles on a topic

NB. you will still be able to access the library’s databases to perform more in depth literature searches as normal.

To help our members become familiar and confident in using the new search facility there will be a series of 30 minute introductory drop-in sessions. These sessions will be run on the various sites to make it more convenient for as many to attend as possible.

Newforge & Stormont

Thursday 19th March

-------------------

11 to 11.30am

12.30 to 1pm

------------

Newforge & Stormont

Friday 20th March

10 to 10.30am

11 to 11.30am

12.30 to 1pm

------------

Hillsborough

Thursday 26th March

10.30-11 am

12.30-1pm

2-2.30pm

3.30-4pm

Loughgall

Thursday 26th March

tbc

In addition if there any questions you can of course contact either Deborah or Angela directly (contact details below).

The EDS will be run as a one year pilot. Although we do not anticipate any difficulties, only when it is available as a live system to our library users will we be able to fully assess the resource so we would be very grateful for any feedback.

To search within the collection, select ‘The following collection [ AFBI Choice 25]’ before entering search terms into the box provided

Books are accessed on the eb20 platform by clicking ‘Read online’

Annotating and citation options are also available. You will be prompted to create a free eb20 account for these functions.Pages may be printed or copied within Digital Rights Restrictions (20% of a book may be printed, 5% of a book may be copied). Printing and copying allowances are detailed on the platform.

Books may be downloaded for a period of 30 days to be read on your desktop and eReader devices. Adobe Digital editions is required for this function

The Library is about to replace all AFBI library cards with a new, more functional smart card. The new card will operate in the same way as your current card including enabling you to access the other QUB libraries such as the McClay Library. All library members will shortly receive an email asking them to confirm that they wish to receive a new card; please respond as soon as possible so they library can begin the process and issue you with a new card. Once you have received your new card, your old library card will no longer be vaild so please return it to the library at either Stormont or Newforge.

If you have any queries please don't hesitate to contact the Library at either Newforge (028 90255227) or Stormont (028 90525622) or email agriclib@qub.ac.uk

The AFBI Library, Newforge has a new MFD (multi-functional device). This device enables scanning, printing and photcopying in either black and white or colour. If you require any assistance in using the new MFD please don't hesitate to ask a member of library staff.

The AFBI Library is currently undertaking some work on refurbishing the libraries on the Loughgall and Hillsborough sites.The plan is to make the libraries a more pleasant environment for study and reading.Both libraries will undergo a stock weed to ensure that there is a core book collection and were e-access is available print journals will be reduced.This will enable space to be freed up to create causal seating areas for reading or informal discussions.In addition PC access will be upgraded to ensure that library users on these sites have a dedicated computer for quick and easy access to electronic resources available via AFBI Library Online.Remember if you can’t find what you are looking for in the local library just contact the Newforge library ( agriclib@qub.ac.uk or 028 90255227) and staff will be happy to send, directly to your work location, any books you require or photocopy articles on your behalf.

Thank you for your patience during this work and we hope you will enjoy using the new library spaces on each of these sites.

Don’t forget that while the formal Library training programme has finished for the summer months you don’t have to wait for the new programme in the Autumn. If you require any training or assistance in the meantime on the following areas just contact either Angela or Deborah:

The results of the AFBI User Survey have been analysed and a short report has been compiled which is linked to below. You will see there were various specific suggestions to come out the survey and the Library will be following up on these in the coming months and will keep you informed of the outcome (NB. all journal suggestions will be considered as part of the journal review process with your library respresentatives).

A new resource has been added to the AFBI Library Online’s suite of databases from the Web of Science. SciELO contains 650 titles from Latin America, Spain, Portugal, the Caribbean and South Africa from 1997 onwards and includes coverage in the areas of agricultural and biological sciences.

To access this new resource go to the Database section of the AFBI Library Online website and select SciELO from the list.

The final version of the Strategic Plan 2013-2018 is now up on AFBI Library Online. Thank you to all of you who attended our briefing sessions and provided feedback. We have incorporated your comments into the plan and the projects we plan to carry out over the next five years.

Did you know that AFBI Library Online is web based? This means you can access the website and all its resources from any computer as long as you are connected to the internet. So you are not limited to searching the Online Library and its resources just from you AFBI PC.

The Library is now purchasing e-books that you can access from your own location. E-books can be accessed by searching on the library catalogue as you would normally search for a print book. Once you have retrieved the information on a particular title, instead of a library location, you will see a link to an AFBI Online Resource, click on this and log in, when prompted, with your usual library log in.

Did you know that you can make suggestions for new books to be purchased for Library stock? If you think there is a book that the library should have in stock we would welcome your suggestion. You can do this by using the Suggest a purchase in My Account on the AFBI Library Online website, or by emailing either of individuals below.

The Library’s new A-Z list of journals is now available on AFBI Library Online. The A-Z list has been redesigned to make it easier for you to access the journals you require. You can browse the alphabetical list, search for a specific title or search by keyword for journals on a particular subject. There are also quick links to AFBI Library Online, Library catalogue and databases.

A list of new books bought for any of the AFBI libraries during November 2012 to January 2013 can be found here. Please come and borrow any that are of interest to you and if you know of any titles that we should be adding to stock please let us know.

The AFBI Library will be closed from Friday, 14th of April until Tuesday, 18th of April inclusive. Normal opening hours resume on Wednesday, 19th of April. We would like to take this opportunity to wish all AFBI staff a pleasant Easter break.